and there goes my Nine to Five
by Kuro49
Summary: Chuck!AU. Peter has a computer in his head, El works at the Italian place around the corner and Neal is back from the dead.


So _Chuck_ basically follows Chuck, an adorkable tech guy (tall, dark, and handsome), who suddenly gets thrown into the spy world of CIAs and NSAs, and all kinds of other acronyms when his ex-college buddy, Bryce (who as much as Chuck claims to hate, we know he loves him just as much, if not moreee) sends him an email on his birthday which also happens to contain a top secret government program, call the Intersect.

Peter as Chuck, Neal as Bryce (because Matt Bomer, duh), and El as Sarah because everyone but Peter gets a gun, I mean, how can you even resist?

XXX

**and there goes my Nine to Five**

XXX

The first time he meets Elizabeth, she tells him to call her El before he signs for the Italian takeout they ordered for lunch that day. She is looking up at him, through her long dark lashes and smiles a smile just for him. Her eyes are a pretty, pretty blue that reminds him of someone else.

It makes him take a step back, stutter a thanks that barely makes it off his tongue.

000

The second time he sees Elizabeth again, she tells him to call her El the same moment she's got a gun, pointed level at his head. Except she isn't quite looking straight at him, her eyes are strained beyond him with something haunting in the blue.

And his breath only seems to catch in his throat when she says a name he hasn't heard for a long, long time.

"Caffrey."

Peter spins around (he can barely remember that El is still holding a gun) and swallows tightly at the sight of the other man. He looks debonair, suave, and everything that a dead man shouldn't.

"…Neal?"

"Hey Peter," he gives him a grin that starts off as the smallest, most tentative smile for a fraction of a second before. And as much as Peter tries to forget, that is a Caffrey grin that has always been just for him. There is no way around it, that's the same old Neal Caffrey from his university days. "Missed me?"

Except he's got a gun too.

But that is both absurd and impossible. Neal hates guns (hates violence in a way that astounds Peter really). Then again, Neal isn't even supposed to be breathing, let alone standing there with his eyes just as blue as the day he first met him. Peter has just gone to Neal Caffrey's goddamn funeral too.

"Elizabeth, there's no need for us to shoot at each other." His eyes are still on Peter but he is talking to Elizabeth, the barrel of his gun lowered just by an inch. It won't be a kill shot if he pulls the trigger, it will only stall her long enough for him to get away, given that she doesn't shoot him first. "I can explain—"

"Oh what, Neal? What are you going to explain? Like how you betrayed our country? Or how you let Mozzie _shoot_ you?" She bites out, a low thrum of anger running just below the first tremor in her words. Her eyes are narrowed, blue gleaming in betrayal. Elizabeth takes a step forward, Neal steps back, and her hand comes to wrap around Peter's forearm.

And then she's also got the gun, level at Peter's side.

Her frown is grim, like she can see that threatening Peter's life will hurt so much more than getting a kill shot on Caffrey himself. "Come on, Neal. Come with me and I don't have to do anything you and I will both regret."

Peter inhales deeply, not at the added pressure, but at the sadness in her voice. He watches as Neal tightens his grip on his gun, knuckles white. And his plead comes out just as soft as hers.

"Don't do this, Elizabeth."

"Where's the Intersect, Neal?"

Peter looks away from the history of pain in their eyes (and Peter once thought Kate has hurt Neal enough, but apparently not enough, not with the way Neal is still capable of looking at El like that). He looks away and his eyes catch sight of the hotel in the distance, the fancy one he passes two times a day, everyday when he drives to and from his workplace and his home.

000

If life is made of turning points, then Peter supposes this is his. The single moment that changes everything. His throat turns dry, his eyes grow wide. Peter reels back, almost hunched over at the sudden onslaught of images, of flashes of a man, someone important, and a countdown going steadily to zero in a hall full of people.

"Peter?!"

He thinks that might be Neal, calling out his name with panic buried deep beneath all his easy play pretend. But there is also a hand on his arm that is much too small. Peter pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes through his mouth.

"…You opened the email." Neal says, after a second, he sounds hesitant, almost breathless like he can't really believe it.

El snaps her gaze between the two of them when Peter finally opens his eyes to glare at Neal, the man who drops out of Stanford with three terms left to go until graduation. The man who disappears off of the face of the earth after a bad break up with Kate Moreau, the pretty girl that has always been bad news no matter which way Peter examines their relationship. The man that Peter has always liked, as more than any friend or fraternity brother or roommate— should.

The same man that died just over a week ago without saying so much as goodbye.

Peter doesn't understand the realization dawning in Elizabeth's eyes but he does understand the surge of delight in Neal's. Beneath the wicked, reckless ways, Peter knows that Neal has always done everything wrong with all the right intentions behind it.

It doesn't mean he can't hate him any less for it.

"You're never allowed to get me a present again, Caffrey."

XXX Kuro

Gun-totting El is gorgeous on the eyes and the thought of Mozzie as Casey, I mean, Mozzie as _Casey_. /snorts


End file.
